Step-by-Step: Build a SharePoint 2013 Lab in the Cloud on Windows Azure

My good friend and colleague, Tommy Patterson, recently blogged about leveraging the Windows Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) preview offering to build a FREE lab environment in the Cloud. You can read Tommy’s step-by-step article at:

What about a SharePoint 2013 Lab in the Cloud?Now that SharePoint Server 2013 has been released, I frequently get asked about ways in which a SharePoint 2013 lab environment can be easily built for studying, testing and/or performing a proof-of-concept. You could certainly build this lab environment on your own hardware, but due to the level of SharePoint 2013 hardware requirements, a lot of us may not have sufficient spare hardware to implement an on-premise lab environment.

This makes a great scenario for leveraging our Windows Azure FREE 90-day Trial Offer to build a free lab environment for SharePoint 2013 in the cloud. Using the process outlined in this article, you’ll be able to build a basic functional farm environment for SharePoint 2013 that will be accessible for approximately 105 hours of compute usage each month at no cost to you under the 90-day Trial Offer.

After the 90-day trial period is up, you can choose if you’d like to convert to a full paid subscription. If you choose to convert to a paid subscription, this lab environment will cost approximately $0.56 USD per hour of compute usage ( that’s right – just 56 cents per hour ) plus associated storage and networking costs ( which can typically be less than $10 USD per month for a lab of this nature ). These estimated costs are based on published Pay-As-You-Go pricing for Windows Azure that is current as of this article’s date.

Note: If you are testing advanced SharePoint 2013 scenarios and need more resources than available in the lab configuration below, you can certainly scale-up or scale-out elastically by provisioning larger VMs or additional SharePoint web and application server VMs. To determine the specific costs associated with higher resource levels, please visit the Windows Azure Pricing Calculator for Virtual Machines.

SharePoint 2013 Lab ScenarioTo deliver a functional and expandable lab environment, I’ll be walking through the approach of provisioning SharePoint Server 2013 on Windows Azure VMs as depicted in the following configuration diagram that will require three (3) VMs on a common Windows Azure Virtual Network.

Lab Scenario: SharePoint 2013 on Windows Azure VM

In this lab, we’ll be using a naming convention of XXXlabYYY01, where XXX will be replaced with your unique initials and YYY will be replaced with an abbreviation representing the function of a virtual machine or Windows Azure configuration component (ie., ad, db or app).

Note: This study lab configuration is suitable for study, functional testing and basic proof-of-concept usage. This configuration is not currently supported for pilot or production SharePoint 2013 farm environments.

Prerequisites

The following is required to complete this step-by-step guide:

A Windows Azure subscription with the Virtual Machines Preview enabled.

NOTE: When activating your FREE Trial for Windows Azure, you will be prompted for credit card information. This information is used only to validate your identity and your credit card will not be charged, unless you explicitly convert your FREE Trial account to a paid subscription at a later point in time.

This step-by-step guide assumes that the reader is already familiar with configuring Windows Server Active Directory, SQL Server and SharePoint Server 2013 in an on-premise installation. This guide focuses on the unique aspects associated with configuring these components on the Windows Azure cloud platform.

Let’s Get Started!In this step-by-step guide, you will learn how to:

Register a DNS Server in Windows Azure

Define a Virtual Network in Windows Azure

Configure Windows Server Active Directory in a Windows Azure VM

Configure SQL Server 2012 in a Windows Azure VM

Configure SharePoint Server 2013 in a Windows Azure VM

Export / Import Lab Environment via PowerShell

Exercise 1: Register a DNS Server in Windows Azure

Register the internal IP address that our domain controller VM will be using for Active Directory-integrated Dynamic DNS services by performing the following steps:

Note: It is suggested to use secure passwords for Administrator users and service accounts, as Windows Azure virtual machines could be accessible from the Internet knowing just their DNS. You can also read this document on the Microsoft Security website that will help you select a secure password: http://www.microsoft.com/security/online-privacy/passwords-create.aspx.

On the Virtual Machine Options page, click the button to begin provisioning the new virtual machine.

As the new virtual machine is being provisioned, you will see the Status column on the Virtual Machines page of the Windows Azure Management Portal cycle through several values including Stopped, Stopped (Provisioning), and Running (Provisioning). When provisioning for this new Virtual Machine is completed, the Status column will display a value of Running and you may continue with the next step in this guide.

After the new virtual machine has finished provisioning, click on the name ( XXXlabad01 ) of the new Virtual Machine displayed on the Virtual Machines page of the Windows Azure Management Portal.

On the virtual machine details page for XXXlabad01, make note of the Internal IP Address displayed on this page. This IP address should be listed as 10.0.0.4.

If a different internal IP address is displayed, the virtual network and/or virtual machine configuration was not completed correctly. In this case, click the DELETE button located on the bottom toolbar of the virtual machine details page for XXXlabad01, and go back to Exercise 2 and Exercise 3 to confirm that all steps were completed correctly.

On the virtual machine details page for XXXlabad01, click the Attach button located on the bottom navigation toolbar and select Attach Empty Disk. Complete the following fields on the Attach an empty disk to the virtual machine form:

- Name: XXXlabad01-data01 - Size: 10 GB - Host Cache Preference: None

Click the button to create and attach the a new virtual hard disk to virtual machine XXXlabad01.

On the virtual machine details page for XXXlabad01, click the Connect button located on the bottom navigation toolbar and click the Open button to launch a Remote Desktop Connection to the console of this virtual machine. Logon at the console of your virtual machine with the local Administrator credentials defined in Step 5 above.

From the Remote Desktop console of XXXlabad01, create a new partition on the additional data disk attached above in Step 10 and format this partition as a new F: NTFSvolume. This volume will be used for NTDS DIT database, log and SYSVOL folder locations.

On the Virtual Machine Options page, click the button to begin provisioning the new virtual machine.

As the new virtual machine is being provisioned, you will see the Status column on the Virtual Machines page of the Windows Azure Management Portal cycle through several values including Stopped, Stopped (Provisioning), and Running (Provisioning). When provisioning for this new Virtual Machine is completed, the Status column will display a value of Running and you may continue with the next step in this guide.

After the new virtual machine has finished provisioning, click on the name ( XXXlabdb01 ) of the new Virtual Machine displayed on the Virtual Machines page of the Windows Azure Management Portal.

On the virtual machine details page for XXXlabdb01, make note of the Internal IP Address displayed on this page. This IP address should be listed as 10.0.0.5.

If a different internal IP address is displayed, the virtual network and/or virtual machine configuration was not completed correctly. In this case, click the DELETE button located on the bottom toolbar of the virtual machine details page for XXXlabdb01, and go back to Exercise 2 and Exercise 3 to confirm that all steps were completed correctly.

On the virtual machine details page for XXXlabdb01, click the Attach button located on the bottom navigation toolbar and select Attach Empty Disk. Complete the following fields on the Attach an empty disk to the virtual machine form:

- Name: XXXlabdb01-data01 - Size: 50 GB - Host Cache Preference: None

Click the button to create and attach the a new virtual hard disk to virtual machine XXXlabdb01.

On the virtual machine details page for XXXlabdb01, click the Connect button located on the bottom navigation toolbar and click the Open button to launch a Remote Desktop Connection to the console of this virtual machine. Logon at the console of your virtual machine with the local Administrator credentials defined in Step 5 above.

From the Remote Desktop console of XXXlabdb01, create a new partition on the additional data disk attached above in Step 10 and format this partition as a new F: NTFSvolume.

Now, you will update the database's default locations for DATA, LOGS and BACKUP folders. To do this, right click on your SQL Server instance and select Properties.

Select Database Settings from the left side pane.

Locate the Database default locations section and update the default values for each path to point to the F: volume you previously formatted.

Close SQL Server Management Studio.

In order to allow SharePoint to connect to the SQL Server, you will need to add an Inbound Rule for the SQL Server requests in the Windows Firewall. To do this, open Windows Firewall with Advanced Security from Start | All Programs | Administrative Tools.

Select Inbound Rules node, right-click it and select New Rule to open the New Inbound Rule Wizard.

In the Rule Type page, select Port and click Next.

In Protocols and Ports page, leave TCP selected, select Specific local ports, and set its value to 1433. Click Next to continue.

In the Action page, make sure that Allow the connection is selected and click Next.

In the Profile page, leave the default values and click Next.

In the Name page, set the Inbound Rule's Name to SQLServerRule and click Finish

Close Windows Firewall with Advanced Security window.

Using the Server Manager tool, join this server to the contoso.com domain and restart the server to complete the domain join operation.

After the server restarts, connect again via Remote Desktop to the server’s console and login with the local Administrator credentials defined above in Step 5.

On the Virtual Machine Options page, click the button to begin provisioning the new virtual machine.

As the new virtual machine is being provisioned, you will see the Status column on the Virtual Machines page of the Windows Azure Management Portal cycle through several values including Stopped, Stopped (Provisioning), and Running (Provisioning). When provisioning for this new Virtual Machine is completed, the Status column will display a value of Running and you may continue with the next step in this guide.

After the new virtual machine has finished provisioning, click on the name ( XXXlabapp01 ) of the new Virtual Machine displayed on the Virtual Machines page of the Windows Azure Management Portal.

On the virtual machine details page for XXXlabapp01, make note of the Internal IP Address displayed on this page. This IP address should be listed as 10.0.0.6.

If a different internal IP address is displayed, the virtual network and/or virtual machine configuration was not completed correctly. In this case, click the DELETE button located on the bottom toolbar of the virtual machine details page for XXXlabapp01, and go back to Exercise 2, Exercise 3 and Exercise 4 to confirm that all steps were completed correctly.

On the virtual machine details page for XXXlabapp01, click the Attach button located on the bottom navigation toolbar and select Attach Empty Disk. Complete the following fields on the Attach an empty disk to the virtual machine form:

Click the button to create and attach the a new virtual hard disk to virtual machine XXXlabapp01.

On the virtual machine details page for XXXlabapp01, click the Connect button located on the bottom navigation toolbar and click the Open button to launch a Remote Desktop Connection to the console of this virtual machine. Logon at the console of your virtual machine with the local Administrator credentials defined in Step 5 above.

From the Remote Desktop console of XXXlabapp01, create a new partition on the additional data disk attached above in Step 10 and format this partition as a new F: NTFSvolume.

In the Server Manager tool, click on Local Server in the left navigation pane and click on the Workgroup option. Join this server to the contoso.com domain and restart the server to complete the domain join operation.

After the server restarts, re-establish a Remote Desktop connection to the server and logon with the CONTOSO\Administrator domain user credentials defined earlier in Exercise 3.

In the Server Manager tool, click on Local Server in the left navigation pane and select IE Enhanced Security Configuration. Turn off enhanced security for Administrators and click the OK button.

Note: Modifying Internet Explorer Enhanced Security configurations is not good practice and is only for the purpose of this particular step-by-step guide. The correct approach should be to download files locally and then copy them to a shared folder or directly to the VM.

Press the Windows key to switch to the Start Screen and launch Internet Explorer. Download the following files to the F:\INSTALL folder:

Navigate to the F:\INSTALL folder and double-click on the downloaded .IMG file to mount it. Copy all files and folders from the mounted .IMG file to F:\INSTALL.

Install the SharePoint Server 2013 software prerequisites by running F:\INSTALL\prerequisiteinstaller.exe. Note that this process may require multiple server restarts to complete. After all required software is successfully installed, continue with the next step in this step-by-step guide.

Select Virtual Machines located on the side navigation panel on the Windows Azure Management Portal page.

On the Virtual Machines page, click on the name of the SharePoint virtual machine – XXXlabapp01.

On the XXXlabapp01 virtual machine details page, click on Endpoints in the top navigation area of the page.

Click the +Add Endpoint button in the bottom navigation bar of the page to define a new virtual machine endpoint that will permit HTTP web traffic inbound to the SharePoint virtual machine.

On the Add an endpoint to a virtual machine form, select the Add Endpoint option and click the button to continue.

On the Specify the details of the endpoint form, specify the following field values:

- Name: Web HTTP - Protocol: TCP - Public Port: 80 - Private Port: 80

Click the button to create a new endpoint definition that will permit inbound web traffic to the SharePoint virtual machine.

After the endpoint configuration has been successfully applied, test browsing to the following public URL to confirm that you are able to access the Intranet site collection that is configured on SharePoint:

- URL: http://XXXlabapp01.cloudapp.net

The configuration for this virtual machine is now complete, and you may continue with the next exercise in this step-by-step guide.

Exercise 6: Export / Import Lab Environment via PowerShell

Our functional SharePoint lab environment is now complete, but if you’re like me, you won’t be using this lab environment 24x7 around-the-clock. As long as the virtual machines are provisioned, they will continue to accumulate compute hours against your Free 90-Day Windows Azure Trial account regardless of virtual machine state – even in a shutdown state!

To preserve as many of your free compute hours for productive lab work, we can leverage the Windows Azure PowerShell module to de-provision our lab virtual machines when not in use and re-provision our lab virtual machines when we need them again. Once you’ve configured the PowerShell scripts below, you’ll be able to spin up your SharePoint lab environment when needed in as little as 5-10 minutes!

Note: Prior to beginning this exercise, please ensure that you’ve downloaded, installed and configured the Windows Azure PowerShell module as outlined in the Getting Started article listed in the Prerequisite section of this step-by-step guide.

De-provisioning your lab. Use the PowerShell snippet below to shutdown, export and de-provision your SharePoint lab environment when you’re not using it. Prior to running this script, be sure to edit the first line to reflect the names of each of your VMs and confirm that the $ExportPath location exists.

Re-provisioning your lab. Use the PowerShell snippet below to import and re-provision your SharePoint lab environment when you’re ready to use it again. Prior to running this script, be sure to edit the first two lines to reflect the names of your Virtual Network and VMs.

To ensure safe de-provisioning and re-provisioning of your SharePoint lab environment, note that it is important to preserve the specific order of the VM names listed in both code snippets above to ensure that the dependency order across VMs is properly handled.

What’s Next? Keep Learning!

Now that your SharePoint Server 2013 lab environment is running in the cloud, be sure to explore the resources below to continue your learning:

Keith Mayer is a Technical Evangelist at Microsoft focused on Windows Infrastructure, Data Center Virtualization, Systems Management and Private Cloud. Keith has over 17 years of experience as a technical leader of complex IT projects, in diverse roles, such as Network Engineer, IT Manager, Technical Instructor and Consultant. He has consulted and trained thousands of IT professionals worldwide on the design and implementation of enterprise technology solutions.

Keith is currently certified on several Microsoft technologies, including System Center, Hyper-V, Windows, Windows Server, SharePoint and Exchange. He also holds other industry certifications from IBM, Cisco, Citrix, HP, CheckPoint, CompTIA and Interwoven.

Keith is the author of the IT Pros ROCK! Blog on Microsoft TechNet, voted as one of the Top 50 "Must Read" IT Blogs.

Keith also manages the Windows Server 2012 "Early Experts" Challenge - a FREE online study group for IT Pros interested in studying and preparing for certification on Windows Server 2012. Join us and become the next "Early Expert"!

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